VSwyryn Designs - Portfolio of Valerie Swyryn

profile

Highly skilled visual communicator with a strong sense of responsibility, and has always been an asset to any company she's worked for.

professional experience

Freelance Graphic and Web Designer 1985 to Present
Various Clients

Projects include corporate branding, print advertising, invitations, and most recently, web design and maintenance.

Griffin Daily News– Griffin, Georgia 2005 - 2008
Part-time Designer
Key Achievements and Skills:

Designed eye-catching advertisements for large and small businesses for local community newspaper. This demanded the use of good copy writing skills, quality typography and color choices, and the ability to create various layout styles.
Was responsible for design and printability of all special section covers, which allowed for more creative freedom.
Successfully handled unexpected technical issues with computer hardware and peripheral and network.
Led training for associates in learning InDesign. Shared tips and tricks to make them more efficient in their duties.
Paginated the pages of the paper, combining the ads and editorial and outputting to film.

Williamson Learning Center– Williamson, Georgia 2004 - 2005
Kindergarten Teacher

Southern Living at Home 2003 - 2006
Independent Consultant

Griffin Daily News– Griffin, Georgia 1998 - 2002
Graphics/Systems Manager
Key Achievements and Skills:

Efficiently managed a seven person graphics department. Responsible for the department meeting all daily deadlines error-free and scheduling staff.
Designed and composed multipage special section tabs inserted into the main paper. Most of these entailed large amounts of photo scanning and retouching, copywriting, space calculation, cover and page design.
Editor of weekly cover story and page layout of automotive section.
Consulted with commercial clients to coordinate supplied files were set up correctly for output on our imagesetters and to fit our page templates. Provided training to customer artists in correct scanning, sizing and color correcting of their supplied photos.
Constructed master layout templates for the news pages, as well as style libraries.
Conceived and implemented procedures for reducing the amount of errors due to miscommunication between departments. Provided support to employees during the learning process.
Effectively handled the onsite management of a network consisting of 40+ Macintosh computers and peripherals, four servers, one database server, two imagesetters and film processor.
Assisted the main IT person on his weekly visits to our site.
Provided after-hours support to the graphics and editorial departments to ensure they met their deadlines in spite of equipment or software issues.

Wilen Companies- Atlanta Georgia 1997 - 1998
Graphic Designer
Key Achievements and Skills:

Produced 100+ page product catalog and price list for cleaning supply manufacturer. This entailed the basic layout design, coordinating and directing of product photo shoots with professional photographer and models, and writing product descriptions.
Design and production conversion of all existing packaging from English-only to a tri-lingual format.
Designed new look for retail division packaging, including new color scheme and logo design.
Worked in development of ad campaign for new products in the form of brochures, ads, postcards and flyers.

Brand Label, Inc.– Jacksonville, Florida 1985 - 1996
Graphic Artist/Network Manager
Key Achievements and Skills:

Produced thousands of pressure-sensitive label designs. Handled all facets of the process from conception, to color trapping, distortion and final output to film and plates for flexoprinting.
Provided training for new employees and coworkers on the use of software applications and equipment.
Consulted with select clients to ensure 100% satisfaction and on-time completion of projects.
Coordinated the installation of a three work station network with peripherals, as well as all associated software.

software skills

Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Flash, QuarkXPress, Microsoft Office

program languages

HTML/XHTML, CSS, Actionscript, MySQL, PHP

education

Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Online Division 2008-2009
Web and Interactive Media Design Diploma
GPA 4.0

Florida Community College at Jacksonville 1995
Adobe Illustrator Course - Completed
64 contact hours

National Education Center/Tampa Tech 1983 - 1984
Associate Degree - Commercial Art
GPA 3.39

Westside Skills Center 1979 - 1982
Commercial Art Diploma

personal interests

Booster president for The Panther Regiment Band, Perry High School Perry, GA, gardening, animals, cooking, roller skating, photography and anything that utilizes my creative skills.